World's largest toothpaste collection tops 3,000 tubes

Jan. 30 (UPI) -- A Georgia dentist who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of toothpaste said his collection has grown to about 3,000 tubes.

Dr. Val Kolpakov of Peach State Dentistry in Alpharetta said his toothpaste collection began when he was trying for a very different Guinness record -- the largest collection of pulled teeth.

"When I started my dental career, I was pulling hundreds of teeth, then I remembered there was a Guinness record for number of teeth pulled," he told WXIA-TV. "I started looking online for that record and I could not find it."

Kolapakov said he still has his collection of hundreds of extracted teeth, but he ended up finding information on toothpaste collecting and decided to change his focus.

"Instead, I came across information about collecting toothpaste, and I thought, 'Hey I would love to collect toothpaste,' because it's much more exciting," he said.

He was first awarded the record in 2012, when his collection stood at 2,037 different tubes, but he said the number has since grown by more than 1,000.

"We tried to convert our office to sort of a dental museum," he said. "All my patients, they're pretty excited when I show them some unusual flavors that I have. And if they travel to certain countries, they bring me toothpaste from there."